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Suttree

No discussion of great modern authors is complete without mention of Cormac McCarthy, whose rare and blazing talent makes his every work a true literary event. A grand addition to the American literary canon, Suttree introduces readers to Cornelius Suttree, a man who abandons his affluent family to live among a dissolute array of vagabonds along the Tennessee river.

The Orchard Keeper

One of America’s most celebrated novelists, Cormac McCarthy announced his towering presence on the literary stage with his first novel, The Orchard Keeper. Within the pages of this classic work, John Wesley Rattner, his uncle Ather, and bootlegger Marion Sylder find their lives dangerously entwined in pre-World War II Tennessee. There, the men’s tragedies and struggles are mirrored by the looming specter of industrialization.

Outer Dark

Outer Dark is a novel at once fabular and starkly evocative, set is an unspecified place in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the century. A woman bears her brother's child, a boy; he leaves the baby in the woods and tells her he died of natural causes. Discovering her brother's lie, she sets forth alone to find her son. Both brother and sister wander separately through a countryside being scourged by three terrifying and elusive strangers, headlong toward an eerie, apocalyptic resolution.

Child of God

In this taut, chilling audiobook, Lester Ballard - a violent, dispossessed man falsely accused of rape - haunts the hill country of East Tennessee when he is released from jail. While telling his story, Cormac McCarthy depicts the most sordid aspects of life with dignity, humor, and characteristic lyrical brilliance.

Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

Author of the National Book Award-winning All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy is one of the most provocative American stylists to emerge in the last century. The striking novel Blood Meridian offers an unflinching narrative of the brutality that accompanied the push west on the 1850s Texas frontier.

No Country for Old Men

Cormac McCarthy, best-selling author of National Book Award winner All the Pretty Horses, delivers his first new novel in seven years. Written in muscular prose, No Country for Old Men is a powerful tale of the West that moves at a blistering pace.

The Sunset Limited: A Novel in Dramatic Form

In a small apartment, Black and White, as the two men are known, begin a conversation that leads each back through his own history, mining the origins of two fundamentally opposing world views. White is a professor whose seemingly enviable existence of relative ease has left him nonetheless in despair. Black, an ex-con and ex-addict, is the more hopeful of the menthough he is just as desperate to convince White of the power of faith as White is desperate to deny it.

The Road

America is a barren landscape of smoldering ashes, devoid of life except for those people still struggling to scratch out some type of existence. Amidst this destruction, a father and his young son walk, always toward the coast, but with no real understanding that circumstances will improve once they arrive. Still, they persevere, and their relationship comes to represent goodness in a world of utter devastation.

The Last Picture Show: Thalia Trilogy, Book 1

An almost-true story about a small town in Texas that ought to exist if it doesn’t, with characters like Sam the Lion, the delectable Jacy, and Ruth Popper, the coach’s wife. Set in a small, dusty, Texas town, The Last Picture Show introduced the characters of Jacy, Duane, and Sonny: teenagers stumbling toward adulthood, discovering the beguiling mysteries of sex and the even more baffling mysteries of love.

The Big Sky

Originally published more than 50 years ago, The Big Sky is the first of A. B. Guthrie's epic adventure novels of America's vast frontier. The Big Sky introduces Boone Caudill, Jim Deakins, and Dick Summers, three of the most memorable characters in western American literature. Traveling the Missouri River from St. Louis to the Rockies, these frontiersmen live as trappers, traders, guides, and explorers.

The Counselor

Along the gritty terrain of the Texas- Mexico border, a respected and recently engaged lawyer throws his stakes into a cocaine trade worth millions. His hope is that it will be a one-time deal and that, afterward, he can settle into life with his beloved fiancée. But instead, the Counselor finds himself mired in a brutal and dangerous game - one that threatens to destroy everything and everyone he loves.

Days Without End: A Novel

Thomas McNulty, having fled the Great Famine in Ireland and now barely 17 years old, signs up for the US Army in the 1850s and with his brother in arms, John Cole, goes to fight in the Indian Wars - against the Sioux and the Yurok - and, ultimately, in the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, they find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry's latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language.

Colter’s Journey: The Tim Colter Westerns, Book 1

Leaving their Pennsylvania home to forge a new life in the untamed Oregon Territory of 1845, the Colter family is ambushed by a kill-crazy gang of cutthroats on the Oregon Trail. Fifteen-year-old Tim Colter manages to escape and hide - only to return and find his parents butchered, his sisters Nancy and Margaret missing, and one last killer waiting for his return. Forced to fight for his life, the young Colter embarks on a perilous journey across a lawless frontier, hoping to save his sisters and salvage the dream they lived for.

Hard Country: A Novel

National best-selling author and New Mexico native Michael McGarrity takes listeners to the wild territory of the late 19th-century American Southwest for this epic tale. After the deaths of his wife and brother, John Kerney gives up his West Texas ranch and heads south in search of a new home. Soon Kerney is offered work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory - a job that will forever change his life.

Dead Man's Walk

In Dead Man's Walk, Gus and Call are not yet 20, young men coming of age in the days when Texas was still an independent republic. Enlisting as Texas Rangers under a land pirate who wants to seize Santa Fe from the Mexicans, Gus and Call experience their first great adventure in the barren great plains landscape, in which arbitrary violence is the rule -- whether from nature, or from the Indians whose territory they must cross in order to reach New Mexico.<

The Son

Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries. Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive.

The Old Man

To all appearances, Dan Chase is a harmless retiree in Vermont with two big mutts and a grown daughter he keeps in touch with by phone. But most 60-year-old widowers don't have multiple driver's licenses, savings stockpiled in banks across the country, and a bugout kit with two Beretta Nanos stashed in the spare bedroom closet. Most have not spent decades on the run.

Dead Run: The Murder of a Lawman and the Greatest Manhunt of the Modern American West

On a sunny May morning in 1998 in Cortez, Colorado, three desperados in a stolen truck opened fire on the town cop, shooting him 20 times; then they blasted their way past dozens of police cars and disappeared into 10,000 square miles of the harshest wilderness terrain on the North American continent. Self-trained survivalists, the outlaws eluded the most sophisticated law enforcement technology on the planet and a pursuit force that represented more than 75 local, state, and federal police agencies with dozens of SWAT teams, U.S. Army Special Forces....

The Force: A Novel

All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop. He is the "King of Manhattan North", a highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of "Da Force". Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest - an elite special unit given carte blanche to fight gangs, drugs, and guns. Every day and every night for the 18 years he's spent on the job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps.

The Royal Wulff Murders

A local fisherman lands more than he bargained for when he pulls a dead body out of Montana’s Madison River. Sheriff Martha Ettinger takes on the case and soon comes into the company of reclusive artist, Montana newcomer, and ex-PI Sean Stranahan. After teaming up to investigate, Martha and Sean soon uncover evidence that the murder has ties to one of the state’s biggest industries: fly fishing.

True Grit

Mattie Ross, a 14-year-old girl from Dardanelle, Arkansas, sets out to avenge her Daddy who was shot to death by a no-good outlaw. Mattie convinces one-eyed "Rooster" Cogburn, the meanest U.S. marshal in the land, to ride along with her. In True Grit, we have a true American classic, as young Mattie, as vital as she is innocent, outdickers and outmaneuvers the hard-bitten men of the trail in a legend that will last through the ages.

The Sonnets

Everyone knows something of Shakespeare's sonnets, even if only in memorable fragments like "the darling buds of May", or "remembrance of things past", or "the marriage of true minds". For centuries these wonderfully crafted, intense lyrics have stood for something valued about youth, love, and the emotional complexities belonging to that time of life. This new recording presents all 154 of Shakespeare's sonnets, using the New Cambridge Shakespeare texts.

As I Lay Dying

At the heart of this 1930 novel is the Bundren family's bizarre journey to Jefferson to bury Addie, their wife and mother. Faulkner lets each family member, including Addie, and others along the way tell their private responses to Addie's life.

The Cold Dish: A Walt Longmire Mystery

Introducing Wyoming's Sheriff Walt Longmire in this riveting novel from the New York Times best-selling author of Dry Bones, the first in the Longmire series, the basis for the hit Netflix original series Longmire. Johnson draws on his deep attachment to the American West to produce a literary mystery of stunning authenticity, full of memorable characters.

Publisher's Summary

In his novels, best-selling author Cormac McCarthy creates a western landscape filled with characters that are both mythic and authentic. Cities of the Plain, the stunning conclusion of his award-winning Border trilogy, brings together John Grady Cole and Billy Parham—the two lifelong friends who began their adventures in All the Pretty Horses. It is 1952. As Grady and Billy work a remote New Mexico ranch, Grady falls in love with a young Mexican prostitute. Determined to free her from her owner, Grady embarks on his dangerous quest of the heart. Billy tries to protect and help him, but the forces at work soon demand sacrifices greater than either can control. Capturing visions of the American West during its last decades, McCarthy’s powerful work is destined to leave a permanent mark on contemporary literature.

I have recently become a HUGE McCarthy fan due to taking a college class on him and I have to see that Cities of the Plain is truly one of the best books I've ever listened to/read. I will most certainly be listening to Frank Muller's interpretation again, because despite his difficulty in differentiating in voice between all the cowboys, he acts them all very well.

What other book might you compare Cities of the Plain to and why?

Cities of the Plain is in some ways an

What does Frank Muller bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

For me, the scenes between John Grady and Billy just became more personal. They may argue a lot, but you can get a real feel for their undying friendship with each other.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

Well, the whole thing really :). This is an outstanding book. But probably the most moving part is the conclusion and the conversation that Billy has with a blind man. I won't give anything away, but let it be said that McCarthy's sages are always profound, and the one Billy encounters in this novel is no exception.

Any additional comments?

Why haven't you already bought this? GET IT NOW AND READ/LISTEN TO IT!

McCarthy is an artist. He paints pictures with words so vivid that I see his landscape more clearly than what's actually in front of me, as I listen to his words read aloud. If there's any criticism, and I'm sorry that I found it distracting, but Muller's performance was much more affected...more breathy...than his reading of All the Pretty Horses, which was phenomenal. I did overcome it, but almost gave and read it from the book myself. I'm glad I stuck it out, and I will miss these great characters. Brilliant.

I read/listened to each installment of Border series in sequential order. Each story stands skyscraper-tall on its own. “Cities of the Plain” is no exception. Cormac McCarthy is consistent without being formulaic. His writing is engaging, sucking you into his landscape where you can feel the Spanish and prairie dust rolling off your tongue. What I like and admire most about the way he spins a tale, is that his lyrical prose does not interfere with the grit of the story and the intimacy you feel with each character. Without saying too much, there was some degree of predictability early in the story. This does not detract from the enjoyment or suspense because, as with all his narratives, McCarthy delivers a well-spun, fully satisfying yarn with strong characters who have all manner of conflicts, motives, duplicity, and likability.

Having said that, the first installment, “All The Pretty Horses,” is my favorite but this one (the third and last) “Ciites of the Plain” is a close second.

Narrator Richard Poe excelled in his performance. Let’s face it, there was only one Frank Mueller (may he rest in peace), but Poe performs in his own applaudable light.

If you've ever wondered how much difference a narrator can make, just listen to this audiobook which is superbly narrated by Frank Mueller. The novel itself is also excellent although slightly marred by a wholly unnecessary and quite unlikely epilogue. Otherwise a fantastic Western - probably the best I've read / heard.

Cormac McCarthy brought the two story lines together perfectly in this last book of the trilogy. And, as always, his masterful descriptions lead you down the winding path and through the other side. Amazing!

Frank Muller's narration was pretty good but not as good as it was on All the Pretty Horses. There's a weird whisper thing with this narration, and I had to work hard to not let it get in the way of my enjoyment. that being said, he still did an excellent job of portraying each character differently and with a voice suited to each.